THE TOKEN WARS
50 CEOs. Chips, clouds, model labs, software. One question: where is AI token spending actually going?
Across all 50, not one predicts token spending will go down.
40×
Token demand growth by 2030. From 31.7B to 1.27T tokens every 10 seconds (Amon)
100×↓ / 1000×↑
Price per token next year versus demand for it (Mostaque)
6×
Alphabet CapEx in 4 years. $31B to $190B (Pichai)
70%
"Can't spend 70% of revenue on AI tokens forever" (Lütke)
The spectrum of opinion
The three quotes everyone will screenshot
“
In this era, compute equals revenues. The computer generates the tokens, and the tokens generate revenues.
Jensen Huang
NVIDIA · said it 20+ times in 3 weeks
▶ Watch him say it
“
We can't spend 70% of revenue on AI tokens forever and have valuable companies. But right now we really, really like the tokens we're buying.
Tobias Lütke
Shopify
▶ Watch him say it
“
People are tired of token maxing. It looks like masturbation that's cost them money.
Alex Karp
Palantir · the lone skeptic
▶ Watch him say it
Tokens = revenue
Cost is collapsing
The bill breaks us
Tokens per dollar per watt
Skeptic
Second order